Mobilizing for Narrative: A Philanthropic Learning Series

Anoa J. Changa, Deputy Director, Strategic Programs (she/her) is a Southern-based movement journalist, narrative strategist, and retired attorney. She previously served as a grassroots digital organizer and strategic advisor to several organizations.As a journalist, Anoa is deeply influenced by grassroots-led electoral organizing efforts. She approaches coverage through a lens that centers on impacted communities and moving beyond the status quo. Anoa follows in the footsteps of Black journalists like Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who leveraged the power of the media to uphold justice, defy white supremacy, and expand access to democracy.From 2016 to 2020, Anoa hosted The Way with Anoa, tackling politics and current events through a Black feminist perspective. She has served as a consulting producer on several podcast episodes for Gimlet Media and was the politics producer on Farai Chideya’s Our Body Politic during the 2022 midterm election. A speaker, trainer, and presenter in progressive spaces Anoa has bylines in NewsOne, Truthout, Yes! Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Dame Magazine, Scalawag, Rewire News Group, and Essence.Anoa received a B.A. in Sociology and a Master's in City and Regional Planning from The Ohio State University. She was awarded a J.D. from West Virginia University College of Law where she was a W.E.B Dubois fellowship recipient.

hermelinda cortés (she/they) uses organizing, narrative and strategic communications to build power, fortify lasting connections between communities, dismantle systems of domination, and build the liberated world we and future generations deserve. The child of Mexicans and West Virginians, country folks, farmers, factory workers, and trailer parks, she has dedicated her life to the journey of liberation and to the work of social movements for the last 15 years. She lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where she writes, cooks and grows flowers, and raises her kid in the company of dogs and chickens. She believes in the magic, alchemy, and revolutionary possibilities of small towns and rural people. She is the Executive Director of ReFrame and has the great fortune of serving the visions of the Radical Communicators Network, Southerners On New Ground and Country Queers.

Chelsea Fuller (she/her) serves as the Senior Director of Communications at Movement for Black Lives. She is a seasoned strategic communications and media strategist with more than a decade of experience supporting movements for radical change. Currently, she is also Managing Partner and Sr. Strategist at Black Alder, a radical story-telling and communications strategy firm. Previously she held the position of Vice President of Communications at TIME'S UP and was the Deputy Director of Communications at Blackbird, the leading movement capacity-building firm where she worked for nearly six years. Known for her work inside of The Movement for Black Lives, The “me too” Movement and other formations working to end systemic violence, Chelsea has led countless successful campaigns and messaging strategies, effectively shifting national and international narratives around central issues like race, white supremacy, patriarchal violence and community safety. As a former journalist and media advocate, Chelsea’s highly-regarded for her work in helping journalists and media managers adjust their reporting of systemic issues–work that has ultimately led to more accurate, nuanced and authentic coverage of issues impacting the most vulnerable including sexual violence, the criminalization of Black children and police violence. Chelsea brings a wealth of experience, as well as deep-trusted relationships with media, business and community leaders around the globe. She has successfully placed stories in the likes of the New York Times, The Washington Post, Teen Vogue, Yahoo Business, Vanity Fair, Refinery 29, The Root, Essence, the Associated Press and others. She’s advised dozens of organizations and companies, including Twitter, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, The National Urban League, SEIU, Dignity and Power Now, Argent, the Highlander Center, and the Working Families Party. Chelsea holds a BA in News Editorial Journalism and Africana Studies from West Virginia University, an MA in Strategic Communications and Social Justice Advocacy from American University and is currently pursuing a Master’s of Divinity at Methodist Theological School of Ohio.

A popular educator and multidisciplinary artist, Márquez Rhyne (they/them), uses art and culture to reimagine and to organize fair and inclusive societies. They apply these skills toward race, economics, gender, health, and labor in the United States and internationally. Producing participatory documentary media, they have addressed structural barriers to healthcare, HIV prevention and treatment. They train movement leaders across the globe how to wield the power of story, how to build narrative power, and the differences between them. Márquez has served as a team member at Narrative Initiative and as the founding Director of the Transmedia Story Lab at the University of Chicago. They also worked as a cultural strategist for Service Employees International Union and on the Education and the Development & Communications Teams at the Highlander Research & Education Center. They hail from Memphis, Tennessee, and know all the good barbecue and wing spots despite being a vegan.

Jen Soriano (she~they) is a Filipinx-American writer, movement-builder, and performer who has long worked at the intersection of grassroots organizing, narrative strategy, and art-driven social change. They are the author of Nervous:Essays on Heritage and Healing, which won the 2024 Memoir Prize and was featured by GLAMOUR, TIME, and The Atlantic, among other outlets. They are also co-editor of the anthology Closer to Liberation: Pina/xy Activism in Theory and Practice. Jen is a nationally recognized leader in the field of strategic communications and narrative power. They are a co-founder and board chair of ReFrame, and helped build the organization that became Media Justice, together with Amy Sonnie and Founding Director Malkia Devich Cyril. Jen is also a co-creator of the Weathering the Storms crisis prevention and response program of RoadMap, and developed the integrated communications framework, a movement-based model of applying communications toward leadership development, organizational capacity-building, and grassroots power-building, rather than a marketing-based model of downstream promotions and PR. As principal of Lionswrite Communications, Jen has strengthened the narrative capacity and impact of social justice groups from the local to international level. Years after the 2008 financial crisis, she worked with the Right to the City Alliance, the Center for Story-Based Strategy, Rainforest Action Network and other groups to help reignite national coverage of the ongoing foreclosure crisis and its impacts on families of color. Working with the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the We Belong Together campaign, Jen helped shift the 2013-2014 immigration narrative away from individual workers easy to isolate and criminalize, toward women and families who are part of transnational communities. Jen also helped ignite national debate around climate justice, led by BIPOC voices from the US and the Global South, while working with the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance. Originally from a landlocked part of the Chicago area, Jen has spent the past decade living with her family in Seattle, near the Duwamish River and the Salish Sea

Q has led many “lives” in professionalized and grassroots movement as a narrative strategist, resource mobilizer, and policy advocate. Within their role at NCG, Q will be centering racial equity to align our policy and narrative strategies. She is excited to lead the brilliant communications and policy teams towards strategies that shift material conditions and build power for marginalized communities.   

Before joining NCG, Q worked on multiple policy advocacy issues including: housing justice, transit equity, climate justice, disability justice, and Trans liberation. For over 10 years, she has served nonprofits in the Bay Area to build narrative power and create pathways for collective liberation. She has a keen eye for co-envisioning the possibilities and joy inherent in resource redistribution and wealth reclamation work.  

Q graduated with a Masters in Social Work in Community Organizing and Management. Q eagerly serves as a board member for HEART. Their deepest forms of knowledge extend outside of the classroom over South Asian brunch, in somatic grief circles, improv spaces, and near Lake Merritt/Lake Michigan.

Kayla leads digital strategy, content development, and brand communications for NCG in its efforts to advance the impact of the philanthropic sector. She built the organization’s communications platform and continues to manage digital technology and the integration of platforms. She also co-leads strategy for Philanthropy California communications and serves as a co-chair for United Philanthropy Forum’s Communications Peer Community.

Her understanding of inequitable systems and access to resources has shaped her career path in the social sector. She's developed communications for foundations, nonprofits, and networks driving equitable change. She co-chaired communications for the Bay Area Chapter of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy and served on the leadership team for the Communications Network San Francisco. Prior to NCG, her passion for building educational access and creating opportunities for young people led her to work with organizations supporting grassroots students, youth impact leaders, and pro bono service. Kayla has a Certificate in Social Sector Leadership from Berkeley Haas School of Business and a dual BS in Nonprofit Management and Business Management.